Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  Tracker dog project

  BEFORE JOHN ROGERS LEFT THE squadron, he raised the subject of the radio tracker dogs. Though Air HQ approval had not been forthcoming, he suggested that I should look more deeply into the concept and not let it die. Encouraged by this, I arranged for trials to see if a dog could be taught to respond to radio instructions from his handler. Peter Allen decided to use his big Alsatian, Beau, for the purpose. This concerned me because Beau was well on in years and had been trained as an attack dog.

  Thousands of Rhodesians had seen Beau in action at a variety of shows where he and Peter Allen were brought in by helicopter to demonstrate the ‘arrest of a criminal’. Although the Air Force man acting the part of the criminal wore a protective sleeve on his arm to give protection against Beau’s large teeth and powerful jaws, Beau was strong enough always to throw the man to the ground. This is why I felt we should be using a less aggressive animal.

  Wally Jefferies made a small receiver that was inserted into a back harness made especially for Beau in the Safety Equipment Section. In less than one week Peter Allen had his dog obeying radio commands when Beau could neither hear Peter’s normal voice nor see him. The next step was to work the dog along human trails laid by two persons. For this we had to add a transmitter in Beau’s harness so that his ‘out of sight’ handler could hear Beau’s breathing whilst also receiving his own transmissions to his dog.

  First runs were made on thirty-minute-old scent trails over short distances. These were stepped up progressively to six-hour-old trails with longer runs. Beau did well but he always expected a good bite at the end of each run. Because of this, the men who laid the trail had to wait up a tree out of Beau’s reach. Peter Allen’s call, “Beau, come-come-come”, always worked and Beau backtracked rapidly to receive his handler’s applause and fussing.

  When Beau was ready to be flown to the starting point of a trail, we fully expected teething problems. The plan was for Peter to climb out of the helicopter, with both Beau’s and his own radios switched on, and run Beau on leash a short distance to be sure he had picked up the trail scent. Peter would then release his dog and, shouting above the noise of the helicopter, “Go Beau, go, go, go”, remain static as he continued urging his dog by radio. On the helicopter’s radio I could hear Peter’s commands overlaid by the noise of the helicopter and Beau’s breathing.

  Peter had then to run back to the helicopter and jump in, all the time urging his dog, “Go Beau, go, go, go.” We lifted vertically upwards to pick up Beau about 200 metres ahead. He wore a bright day-glo patch on his harness to make finding him in long grass easy. On the first two flight trials Beau started off well, but when the helicopter was over 300 feet high, he turned back to run in circles below the helicopter awaiting uplift. His love of helicopters was frustratingly obvious.

  On the third try he managed to ignore the rising helicopter and had run over two kilometres with the helicopter orbiting above when he suddenly skidded to a halt to relieve his bowels. Having done this, he lost interest in the trail and, again, ran in circles barking madly for uplift. The fourth attempt was successful. Beau ran three kilometres and nearly caught one of the trail layers who managed to climb a tree in the nick of time. He then sat under the tree watching his ‘quarry’ until Peter called, “Beau come, come, come!” whereupon Beau ran towards the helicopter for uplift. No one was more pleased than Beau who leapt into the helicopter and licked me all over my face as I lifted into flight.

  From now on Beau ran the trail each time but he always hoped for a good bite at the end of an ever-increasing trail distance. One thing we were trying to get him to do was go to ground when he had sight or direct scent of those he was tracking and bark just once. Amazingly Peter achieved this, thereby proving that even old dogs can learn new tricks. There were times when Beau really amused us by going to ground and hiding behind the smallest of bushes as he sounded once with more of a suppressed yelp that a bark. From the direction he pointed we were able to establish where his quarry was hiding.

  We now knew that it was feasible to use a helicopter and one or more dogs to run down terrorists without sacrificing dogs in the process. Even on the hottest day Beau could cover fifteen kilometres in about forty minutes following a trail laid eight hours earlier. He tended to be slow initially where the scent was oldest then progressively increased speed as the scent became younger and stronger. Squadron Leader Norman Walsh had been on 7 Squadron for a while by the time we had achieved this. Right from the start he supported what we were aiming for and was impressed when he witnessed a run. As a result, he arranged for Wing Commander Dicky Bradshaw to fly with me to see Beau in action.

  Dicky Bradshaw was convinced by what he saw and arranged for Director General Operations Air Commodore John Deall and Staff Officer Operations Wing Commander Sandy Mutch to visit 7 Squadron to see for themselves. They were both satisfied that the tracker dog concept should be progressed for operational employment.

  Two days later Norman Walsh was instructed by HQ signal to give me a blast for the unauthorised stripping of A60 radios to make Beau’s receiver and transmitter and for expending flying hours without Air Staff’s knowledge. My OC showed me the signal but said nothing. Instead he visited Air HQ to state his opinion that senior technical staff officers, with no bush warfare knowledge whatsoever, were not paying close attention to the needs expressed by operational pilots andtechnicians. Squadrons were still feeling their way in preparing for intensification in the bush war that surely lay ahead. Norman contended that Air HQ’s fullest support and co-operation was essential, particularly where squadron commanders had added support to sensible ideas intended to promote operational effectiveness.

  Operation Cauldron

  OPERATION CAULDRON WAS INITIATED BY National Parks game-ranger Dave Scammell who, when driving with African game-scouts below the Zambezi Escarpment, noticed boot prints of two persons crossing the main east-west access road. Right away Dave recognised that the prints were from terrorist issue figure 8 and chevron pattern boots. RLI troops were flown in and a tracker-combat team under Lieutenant Bert Sachse took control.

  Squadron Leader Norman Walsh, John Barnes, Mark McLean and their technicians were called forward next day after Bert Sachse’s callsign contacted a terrorist group, which took an awful pounding. During the follow-up on survivors, a major base was located near the Chiwore River resulting in a second punch-up on the same day as more RLI callsigns deployed. RLI gained further successes with survivors scattering in all directions. Continued follow-up operations resulted in the discovery of five well-established bases along the Chiwore River stretching from the Zambezi River southward for over eighty kilometres to a sixth base that was later found close to where the Angwa River exits the escarpment. The sixth base was still well short of the populated area the terrorists had sought to reach secretly.

  About 250 ZAPU and SAANC terrorists had established this line of bases with more to follow after reaching the African population above the Zambezi Escarpment. Once established with the locals, they expected to create safe routes all the way through Rhodesia to South Africa—an aim that had failed in the west because of Operation Nickel. Again we had been caught off guard by ZAPU choosing a section of the Zambezi devoid of routine patrol coverage. We had absolutely no hope of covering every inch of our long border and had concentrated on ZANU’s dependence on Zambian fishermen to help them cross the big river. In any case, ZAPU did not fit into our planning so far east.

  Operation Nickel had taught ZAPU that regular food and water had to be guaranteed to transit men and material across unpopulated ground. To achieve this, all the camps were sited on fresh water pools along the Chiwore River’s course where there was also an abundance of game for fresh meat all the way to the populated high ground. Each camp lay under heavy riverine cover to prevent detection from the air. Centuries-old elephant paths were used so as not to create new paths that might show up on aerial photographs or be seen by reconnaissance pilots, both considere
d by ZAPU to be the primary threat. Captured documents in good condition and neatly written recorded quartermasters’ control of meat issued out to large numbers of men.

  Underground tunnels and ammunition bunkers amazed the soldiers just as much as the enormous quantities of arms, ammunition, explosives and staple food supplies they contained. As it happened, the camps had only just been completed. If we had detected ZAPU’s presence a few days earlier, over 100 ZAPU recruits who had portered stores and provided manual labour would also have been subjected to the RLI’s attentions, but they had returned to Zambia. About 150 ZAPU and SAANC trained men remained in Rhodesia.

  Apart from meat found hanging in the camps, the source of huge meat supplies was evident to our forces who came upon the rotting carcasses of elephants whose trunks had been removed but whose tusks remained firmly embedded in their sculls; certainly not the work of poachers! Buffalo with only hindquarters removed lay in grotesque attitudes attended by hyenas and vultures.

  The rotting carcass of an elephant.

  Control of Op Cauldron forces was through a Joint Operations Centre (JOC) established in the small farming town of Karoi. The JOC comprised senior Army, Air Force, Police and Special Branch officers. Also included was Internal Affairs in the person of the District Commissioner. A FASOC for fixed-wing aircraft operated from Karoi Airfield. A tactical HQ and forward base for the RLI and supporting helicopters lay ninety kilometres to the northeast at Dean’s Camp sited on a small hill at the base of the Zambezi Escarpment. The camp had originally been a road construction site until it was taken over by the Department for Tsetse Fly Control. At this base dust and flies added to the discomfort of the Zambezi Valley’s heat. With every helicopter take-off and landing Dean’s Camp disappeared in a cloud of dust. Fortunately it was taken away quickly enough by the permanent gentle breeze but not before finding its way into every tent and building. Living conditionswere rough for Norman Walsh, his helicopter crews and the small RLI command unit.

  VHF communication difficulties in the vast expanses of the flat valley floor were overcome by placing a radio relay team on the high mountain feature, Chiramba-ka-doma. This mountain lay to the east of the terrorist camp line between ZAPU bases 4 and 5. Daily resupply of water, rations and radio batteries was made by helicopters whose pilots’ mountain-flying training had fully prepared them for the turbulence and cloud interference encountered when flying into the tiny sloped patch at the summit of Chiramba-ka-doma. Callsign for the radio relay point was ‘Cloud Base’.

  The leader of the terrorist force was Hedebe who was known to be carrying over $1,000 on his person. This had every RLI soldier hoping he would get to him first; but Hedebe had other ideas and proved himself to be a slippery foe.

  In the valley RLI continued to have short-duration contacts, killing and capturing many terrorists, which caused further disintegration of an already scattered force. Many individuals tried to make their way back to Zambia via the line of camps not realising they had become death traps. Many were killed in RLI ambushes at these camps and along the Zambezi River line. One ZAPU terrorist did not go the Chiwore River route but set off for Zambia in a northeasterly direction. After more than a week without food, this emaciated man stumbled into an SAS patrol somewhere near Kanyemba. Given normal Army field rations, he gulped these down then dropped dead. When Captain Brian Robinson had recovered from the surprise of the incident, he sent a signal to the Quartermaster General offering SAS congratulations for his unit’s first confirmed kill. The QMG was not amused!

  Everything was going RLI’s way until, on 18 March 1968, contact was made at the Mwaura River with a large group led by Hedebe himself. Under Lieutenant Dumpy Pearce, troops of 3 Commando RLI were pinned down on the north bank by intensive fire coming down on them from heavy bush on the higher south bank. John Barnes with Senior Technician Monty Maughan arrived in their helicopter and put down 600 rounds of MAG fire into the position of the unseen enemy. Their intention was to draw attention to themselves and give the ground commander a chance to move his troops to a safer position. Since this had no effect whatsoever, and the troops remained pinned down, John called for heavy airstrike.

  Meanwhile Mark McLean with Corporal Brian Warren came in at lower level to draw terrorist gunfire, which was returned in short measured bursts. Though the helicopter expended only 150 rounds of 7.62mm MAG ammunition, Mark’s actions gave Dumpy Pearce the break he needed to move his men to safer ground. Then, under Mark McLean’s directions, a pair of Vampires put in accurate strikes with 60-pound squash-head rockets and 20mm cannon fire before a Canberra checked-in preparatory to making an attack with ninety-six 28-pound Frag bombs.

  Newly appointed OC of 5 Squadron, Squadron Leader John Rogers, had elected to fly the air task, much to the annoyance of his experienced Canberra crews. When he called one minute out, Mark passed low over the target to place down a phosphorus grenade as a visual marker. The marker was on the terrorists’ position but wind carried its white cloud away from target. The bomb-aimer concentrated his aim on this cloud with the consequence that bombs were released off target, some to explode near ground troops waiting in the ‘safer ground’. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt.

  Prior to Op Cauldron pilots usually flew without a gunner and carried six troops. From Cauldron onwards, it was unusual for pilots to fly without gun and gunner but this limited carriage to five troops (as in this photo where three soldiers and the gunner occupied the back bench). In 1973 it reduced to four, due to increased weight of soldiers’ equipment. This allowed removal of the front centre seat (occupied by the seated soldier seen here) giving the gunner improved angles of traverse.

  When the somewhat annoyed troops moved forward, no fire came down on them because the terrorists had pulled out. By the time they had swept through the abandoned area and established the direction of flight, it had become too dark to follow tracks. The following day the tracker-combat callsign was moving on a trail heading straight for the escarpment.

  At the same time, a smaller callsign was following frothy pink splatters of blood from a single terrorist who obviously had a serious lung wound. By late afternoon they had not closed on this man but reported that spoor of two hyenas overlaid the tracks of the wounded terrorist. Believing the terrorist would not survive the night, the follow-up troops were uplifted for re-deployment to more important task.

  It was probably five years later when I was asked by Special Branch if I remembered the Op Cauldron terrorist we had given up for dead because hyenas were following him; I certainly did. “Would you like to meet the man?” I was asked. It seemed unbelievable but I met the recently captured terrorist whose beaming face showed he was pleased to be alive following his second brush with our security forces. His story was amazing. No white man would have survived the ordeal he described.

  He had been wounded in the attack made by Vampires. He panicked and ran off even before the main group under Hedebe left the contact site. All night and the next day, he struggled for breath as he made his way to the foot of the escarpment. In the late afternoon his attention was drawn to a helicopter coming from behind him. Only then did he see, for the first time, the two hyenas as the helicopter frightened them off. When the aircraft landed it was so close that he could see the rotor blades whirling above low scrub. He tried to get back to it for help but moved too slowly. As the helicopter rose into full view he waved madly trying to attract attention but he was not seen before the helicopter turned and disappeared.

  The two hyenas then reappeared and stayed about thirty metres behind him as he commenced his breathless ascent of the steep escarpment. By then it was almost dark and he was too tired and breathless to continue. So he sat down and faced the hyenas as they moved left and right in short runs, each time coming closer. When they were no more than ten metres away he shot one but missed the other and chased it with a long burst from his AK-47 rifle. Overwhelmed by tiredness, he lay down to sleep; surely to die.

  He was amazed when he awok
e at dawn, wheezing and frothing with his clothing covered in freezing-cold, caked blood. But he was still alive! All day he struggled slowly up the steep escarpment until evening when he lay exhausted and wanting to die. Again he was amazed at the dawning of the third day. Still wheezing and frothing he struggled to his feet and wobbled on ever higher. By nightfall he had reached the high ground and was about to lie down when he noticed a light shining some way off. He noted its position by reference to a tree and went to sleep; again not believing he would survive the night. But, yet again, he awoke on the fourth day.

  Taking a line on the tree and noting the relative position of the sun he plodded off. At around 10 o’clock he came to a farm store that sold goods to the local African people. He was recognised for what he was but told the superstitious storekeeper how he had been unharmed by hyenas; an omen the keeper should know was deadly to anyone reporting his presence.

  Using his Rhodesian money he bought a large bottle of Dettol for his wound as well as something to eat and drink. He repeated his warnings of doom to anyone reporting him and returned to the bush. Under shade in good cover he cut a long thin stick and stripped the bark away. He then inserted the stick into the wound in his chest and manoeuvred the stick until it came through the exit hole on his left shoulder blade. Then, moving the stick in and out slowly in long strokes, he poured the undiluted Dettol into the entry point and down his shoulder into the large exit hole of his terrible wound. Having emptied the bottle and removed the stick he knew in his mind that he would heal. He settled down to eat and drink before falling into a deep sleep that lasted for at least two days.

  The Special Branch man asked the terrorist to remove his shirt so that I could see his scars. The shiny black puckered scars and the dent caused by the loss of a section of shoulder blade showed how large the chunk of shrapnel from a Vampire rocket must have been. I asked the man, “Was it not very painful when you pushed the stick through your body? Didn’t the Dettol burn like crazy?” He said that these were not a problem. “I was choking on neat Dettol blowing out of both holes and into my throat. It was the choking that nearly killed me!”